Saabs Rated As 'Safest Cars' In Swedish Road Accident Study

The Saab 9-5 and Saab 9-3 have been rated as the safest cars in Sweden following the latest road accident study conducted by Folksam, the country's leading insurance company.

The Folksam report, 'How Safe is Your Car?', is published every two years and its findings are based on an assessment of personal injuries in accidents on Swedish roads involving 138 different car models. In winning Folksam's safest car award, the Saab 9-5 and previous-generation 9-3 hatchback were found to carry the lowest injury risk rating.

The findings are based on an analysis of 94,100 car-to-car road accidents in Sweden since 1994 involving injuries to 35,400 occupants. An injury risk measurement is produced for each car model on which there is sufficient data available.

Apart from winning Folksam's overall award, the Saab 9-5 and 9-3 hatchback each topped their own respective categories, for large and medium-sized cars. The Saab 9-5 also won the previous Folksam safest car award two years ago.

Both models have been developed in accordance with Saab's real-life safety philosophy, which involves computer simulations and crash testing designed to replicate what happens in real collisions on real roads. These are derived from reports in a Saab database now covering more than 6,100 real-life accidents involving Saab cars on Swedish roads.

"This latest Folksam report is further independent confirmation of the effectiveness of our long-term work with car safety," says Per Lenhoff, Head of Crash Safety Development at Saab Automobile. "The current Saab 9-3 Sport Saloon model is not yet included because there is insufficient data available but we also expect it to perform extremely well in future studies."

Saab cars are also highly rated in surveys of real-life collisions carried out in the United States by the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI). In Euro NCAP crash tests, the Saab 9-5, 9-3 Sport Saloon and 9-3 Convertible have all achieved a maximum five star rating.